The invention relates to an electron cyclotron resonance (hereinafter referred to as ECR) plasma apparatus, such as chemical vapor deposition (hereinafter referred to as CVD) apparatus, sputtering apparatus, etching apparatus and milling apparatus, using ECR.
Heretofore, an ECR plasma CVD apparatus, an ECR plasma sputtering apparatus or the like is structured such that a cavity is provided to a side surface of a vacuum chamber as an reaction chamber to use it as a cavity resonance chamber for generating ECR plasma, and plasma generated here is taken out into the vacuum chamber. For the cavity, a resonance with a TE.sub.113 mode has been often set in consideration of a stable discharge at a discharge starting point. At this time, the cavity has a diameter of about 200 mm and a length of about 200 mm, and in order to provide a magnetic field in an ECR condition inside the cavity, an electromagnetic coil having an outer diameter of about 500 mm is disposed around the cavity.
However, the conventional ECR plasma apparatus has problems in miniaturizing its shape and reducing its weight. More specifically, as described above, to provide the magnetic field for the ECR condition inside the cavity, the electromagnetic coil having the outer diameter of about 500 mm is required, which results in a large size and a heavy weight of over 200 kg.
Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the invention is to provide an ECR plasma apparatus, wherein the size and weight of the electromagnetic coil can be reduced, so that the apparatus can be miniaturized and lightened in weight as a whole.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.